


The Gilded Cage

by Lenti



Category: The Crown & the Flame (Visual Novels)
Genre: Bondage, F/M, Imprisonment, Slapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 10:52:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13165389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenti/pseuds/Lenti
Summary: Driven out of her ancestral home, Kenna Rhys is amassing an army to reclaim her birthright. But on diplomatic mission gone wrong, she is ambushed and betrayed to her oldest enemy.





	The Gilded Cage

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the warnings.

Hours had passed since Queen Annelyse had revealed her treachery, betraying Kenna and her companions to an ambush set by Prince Marco Nevrakis. In turn, the queen herself was betrayed by Prince Marco as he threw aside and spat on their previous arrangement, reversing his original promise to leave her people in peace in exchange for their cooperation. Instead Marco took her city by force, adding it to his father’s collection of conquered realms, and judged it in his best interest to wed her - with or without her consent. To cement his new authority over Aurelia, the impromptu ceremony was set for the very next day.

Now Marco was sitting at the head table of the dining hall, his reluctant fiancée at his side. Kenna was seated at a smaller table with the rest of the prisoners, seething in silent rage. The only comfort the young queen could take was in the sight of the fresh, angry gash that ran along Marco’s left cheek. The Aurelians had demanded that Kenna and her companions set aside all weapons upon entry into the city, but the young queen had still managed to smuggle a dagger into the city, secretly wary of their mysterious hosts. It was a shame she hadn’t been able to finish the job.

“Is this how you make friends, Marco?” Kenna spoke up in challenge, her chin lifted stubbornly. The only reason she and her followers weren’t already locked up in the dungeons was because he wanted to parade his domination over them.

“Silence,” the prince of Abanthus scowled at her from his seat of honour, a golden goblet in hand. “You’ll speak when spoken to. I control the city and I control you.”

The heavy clinking of armor alerted them to the presence of Helene. The prince’s personal bodyguard, a tall, broad-shouldered woman of dark red hair, came to stand beside him, lowering her head in a quick bow. "My lord, we've rounded up all the able-bodied Aurelians." 

Kenna’s heart sank at the information. Even if the Aurelians had betrayed her cause out of self-interest, she had still held out on fleeting hope that they might reconsider an adjustment in allegiance after being betrayed themselves.

"Excellent,” Marco smiled, a self-satisfied twitch of the lips. The dark-haired man turned back to face Kenna, condescending to her, “If you'd had the stomach for it, Kenna, these people would've been yours for the taking."

At this point, Kenna couldn’t help but inwardly agree. She had trusted the Aurelians to be decent and now she and her friends were being held hostage at Marco’s mercy. If she hadn’t been so trusting, the entire situation might have played out differently. Smuggling in a single dagger made little difference in the end.

"I'm not like you, Marco,” the young queen said instead, concealing her internal ambivalence. Her dark eyebrows were furrowed in anger, her lips set in a grim line. “I don't need slaves to do my fighting."

"Your fighting?” Marco smirked at the face of her bravado. “Your time for fighting is over,” he informed her. If not for his words, he almost sounded amicable, pleasant. “You've lost." Taking another drink from his goblet, he set it down on the golden table, realizing aloud, "You know, it just dawned on me. After having the pleasure of killing your mother, I get the joy of killing you too." Intently, his dark blue eyes watched for her reaction.

“Tell me how does that feel?”

Kenna blinked, her temper rising again at the mention of her needlessly murdered mother. “It feels… It feels…” she teetered between reason and rage, in the knowledge that Marco only wanted to see a rise out of her. But she was also running short on patience for his unrelenting torment. “Fine,” she declared ultimately, a certain pride in the tilt of her chin as she held his dark gaze.

Marco blinked, his smile dropping abruptly. "Hmmph,” he muttered slowly, eyeing her appraisingly. “Not quite the rise I was hoping for,” he concluded.

"Sorry to disappoint you,” Kenna grounded out, her dark eyes hostile as she regarded him. What had he expected? Tears? He knew she was no such woman.

"I'm afraid you're spoiling my mood,” the prince responded in turn, a dark warning. “This is, after all, my party.” The burden of his heavy gaze turned onto the rest of Kenna’s companions, his temper turning as smoothly as the flip of a coin. “It should be fun!” The dark prince looked back at her. "You know what would make it more fun?” An idea seemed to come to him. “If you served me."

“Yes, my lord,” spoke up Annelyse meekly, suddenly drawing everyone’s attention away from the exchange between Marco and Kenna. The queen of the conquered Aurelians had sat in silence for most of the dinner, watching without a single word of protest as her self-proclaimed fiancé bullied his prisoners. She was no more than a prisoner herself.

"Not you, you simpleton.” His harsh blue eyes turned onto the dark-haired girl dressed in gold finery, his already-thin patience waning. “You're my bride, not my servant." His cold eyes returned to Kenna. "I'm talking to her. The sad, little queenling.” He seemed especially smug in the delivery of his words. “You're going to pour my wine.” He turned away from his fiancée, barking out, “Guards!”

Furious by this new humiliation but unable to resist the Nevrakis soldiers seizing her arms, Kenna was tugged up from her seat and promptly marched over to Prince Marco’s side, a pitcher of dark wine roughly shoved into her hands.

“Pour for me,” Prince Marco smirked boyishly up at her, a corner of his mouth lifting as he held out his goblet expectantly.

Irritated and seriously considering throwing the contents of the pitcher onto Marco, Kenna reluctantly did as she was bid, only to be further frustrated when he deliberately knocked his goblet off the table with a lazy flick of his wrist.

"Oh dear, I've spilled it," Marco drawled lowly, eyebrows lifting in parody of apologetic shock. His expression immediately turned stormy. "Clean it up, wrench,” he ordered. “Do a good job, and maybe I'll keep you as a slave instead of having you executed."

Silent but hot with fermenting rage, Kenna nearly missed the sight of Raydan’s familiar figure, peeking out at her from behind one of the golden statues, a meaningful look adorning his sly features. The Aurelians’ betrayal was still fresh in her mind, but the young queen was far more incensed with Marco and all of the injustices he had dealt and would continue to deal out. He didn’t see Raydan yet.

"My... my prince..." Marco couldn’t see him. She wouldn’t let him discover Raydan, who was perhaps her only chance of escape now. “My prince…” Her expression slowly turned resolute. “You should marry me, not Annelyse,” Kenna declared boldly.

It worked. “You’re not being serious.” Marco’s expression shifted into one of open shock – the most honest expression she had ever seen him wear.

"Oh, but I am, my lord,” she assured him, keeping her new confident, easy smile in place as she stared into his wide, blue eyes. It was humiliating but she continued on. “There's no denying how much I'm supposed to hate you. But you've used your superior cunning to outwit me here." She urged him, "Just think, an alliance between you and I would solidify your rule of Stormholt."

"And you...” There was hesitation in his expression, a faint hint of curiosity, desire. “You want this?" The room was silent but for their words.

"Yes,” she agreed firmly. “Now that I know just how powerful you are." Her expression faltered. “And handsome…” 

Not too long ago, there had been a time when a match between the heir apparents of Stormholt and Abanthus was a serious and likely prospect. But that was before her mother’s murder, before she was expelled from her own kingdom by the Abanthus invaders and their king, Luther Nevrakis.

Marco caught the slip in her facade, his expression clearing of shock and immediately reverting to rage. "Your attempts at flattery, while amusing, are transparent," he snapped heatedly. "Did you really think you could charm your way out of your execution?"

"No, but I did think I could distract you,” Kenna shot back in turn, unable to help herself. 

"Distract?"

It was now or never. Raydan stepped forward out of his hiding place, incapacitating a pair of Nevrakis soldiers in two quick, successive throws of his daggers. “Escape! This way!”

Leon was the first to jump up, shoving a Nevrakis soldier out of his way with a loud grunt. Annelyse rose after him, immediately running into the arms of Raydan.

"It's... it's... we're..." stammered out Marco, looking from Raydan, to Annelyse, and to Kenna as he struggled on whom to prioritize.

Capitalizing upon his state of shock and indecision, Kenna tightened her grip on the wine pitcher, giving it a mighty swing and feeling a deep sense of satisfaction as it collided with Marco’s face, shattering into pieces against his aristocratic features.

Kenna moved forward to strike again but strong, large hands held her back. “Not today, girl!” barked out Helene before throwing her aside into one of the tables.

Dazedly, painfully, Kenna rose from where she had been thrown. But before she could escape, Helene had pinned her down and kept her down. Her companions were nowhere to be seen, having scattered in the panic.

“Prince Marco?” the older woman’s eyes flickered over to the dark prince, waiting for the word, the order to kill.

He stared at Kenna, hardness in his dark eyes. He seemed to come to a resolution. “Go after the others. Find my bride.” Without Annelyse’s hand in marriage, Marco’s claim to the conquered city would never be secured.

Shocked by the small mercy, Kenna could only gasp in surprise as Helene shoved her to another Nevrakis soldier before pulling her longsword out of its sheath and charging off.

Watching after Helene until the heavily armoured woman had disappeared from view through a dark doorway, Marco staggered back to Kenna, his expression twisting in rage. “I should gut you where you stand,” he snarled. His forehead was running red from her pitcher assault, stopping just short of bleeding into his eyes. “But I need you alive for that public execution I promised you.” Frustrated by his own practicality. His irate blue eyes turned onto the soldier clenching her. “Take her to the dungeons.”

Turning sharply on his heel, the prince stormed back to the vacant dining table, violently plopping down in his chair. He was alone at the head of his table, grabbing a new goblet to pour more wine for himself even as fresh blood trickled from his brow.

The sight of Marco downing another goblet of wine was the last image seared into her mind as she was marched out of the room by her two silent guards. Kenna could only hope that the others had fled far beyond the realm of Marco’s influence. It was Gabriel she was most concerned for, knowing that her sworn protector would not willingly leave her behind. But it would almost certainly be suicide to return - not without an army.

Kenna was escorted through numerous, confusingly bright golden hallways before the guards finally stopped her outside a large, expansive painting of the Aurelian queen, Annelyse. The ebony-haired noble was beaming brightly in the lavish portrait, resembling the dazzling woman Kenna remembered first meeting far more strongly than the broken girl from the past few hours. Momentarily puzzled, realization quickly dawned upon her as one of the guards turned the painting over onto its face. It was a secret entrance. And, without the wholehearted aid of the Aurelians, her friends would never be able to discover where she was being kept.

Marched down the long, grimy staircase, lit by the guards’ torchlights, she was unceremoniously pushed into the first cell they came across. Unlike the rest of Aurelia city, the prison was dank and dark. If she had awoken here without any knowledge of where she was, she would never have guessed that she was in the famed city of riches.

One soldier followed her while the other stood outside, watching closely with a hand guarding the hilt of his sword. The guard who had followed her grabbed at her wrists, roughly shoving them into a pair of rusted manacles attached to the wall. Her restraints secured, he backed out of the cell, and the pair left together in silence, taking their torches with them and leaving her alone in darkness.

Her wrists held in manacles, Kenna was forced to sit on the grim prison floors with her arms held above her head and her back pressed against the hard wall. Slowly her senses returned to her and she couldn’t help but feel surprised at how empty the prison was. But should she have been? Until she and her friends had found the secret passageway to the city, inadvertently alerting Marco’s spies of the famed city’s existence and location, Aurelia had been isolated from the rest of the world and their wars. Life had been prosperous for all residents of the compact city of gold. The Aurelians Helene had reported on must be kept somewhere else. Or they had already been freed by Raydan. Or worst, if not, the Nevrakis soldiers had judged it too risky to imprison her with the rest of the captives.

Left alone in the darkness, Kenna remained as she was for hours, her arms and wrists growing sore from the awkward angle. Did the others think her dead? Executed on Marco’s orders? Or uneventfully snuffed out in the confusion of the escape? Gabriel was her protector, the old soldier would never leave her behind. But Val and the rest of the mercenaries were only interested in supporting Kenna’s cause so long as their prospects seemed optimistic. And Leon’s faith in her was already so tenuous – she had led them all into an ambush.

Her eyes growing heavy but more defeated than drowsy, Kenna suddenly jolted to attention as she heard footsteps coming down the stairs, a torchlight drawing closer. Straightening herself, and wondering if somehow, beyond all odds, the others had returned for her, she was sorely disappointed when she saw that it was Prince Marco.

The Nevrakis heir stood outside the iron bars of her cell, alone save for the light he carried. Helene and the rest of his typical elite guard were nowhere to be seen but Kenna suspected that they were waiting outside the secret entrance, in case fatality or injury should befall their beloved prince.

Setting the torch into a nearby sconce on the wall, he fumbled with the keys to the cell doors. The rusted door creaked open harshly as he turned the correct key. “Comfortable?” Marco sneered down at her, his expression strange. He was drunk.

“I’ve had worst,” responded Kenna slowly, her fatigue fading away as she appraised Marco, searching for a weakness, an opening. She could take advantage of this. He was vulnerable, drunk, and alone.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he spoke contemptuously, his wine-stained lips forming a flat line as their eyes locked. “You’re thinking ‘how do I fool him?’. ‘How do I get out of here?’.” His smile was cold - colder than all of the long winters of her girlhood. “You can’t seduce me, I know your little tricks now.”

Kenna licked her lips nervously. It was late. Why did he even leave his lavish table? Why had he not already found a bed and some fawning servant girl? He had staggered down all of the hallways and steps to find himself in a dour, sad place. Did he come to taunt her? Or hurt her further? She knew that Marco wasn’t going to kill her yet, he had said so himself, and had restrained himself when he had been most tempted. But like her, the prince also possessed a pugnacious temper that, more often than not, got the better of him. It was treacherous terrain she was treading on.

“Because of you, my bride fled,” he continued speaking, his fine boots heavy upon the stone floor as he stepped into her cell. He stood tall over her, nearly blocking out all of the soft light provided by the torch.

“A pity you can’t seem to find a wife through conventional means,” Kenna responded slowly, gauging his reaction. She felt very vulnerable with her arms held high above her head.

“It would have been simpler with her, but I don’t really need her,” he shook his head harshly. But he was clearly still quite agitated, despite his proud words. Marco hadn’t loved the beautiful and vapid Aurelian queen, but her hand in formal matrimony would have accorded him credibility as the Aurelian sovereign. “The strength of my army alone will be sufficient to force all Aurelians to cower before me.”

‘Your father’s army’. Kenna desired to correct him but she held her tongue for the time being. He seemed content to monologue.

“I’ll mine her city for all of the gold it’s worth,” he promised in a growl. “I’ll tear the castle down and melt it all for metal castings if I have to. I’ll cut down every Aurelian who stands in my way.” Marco turned away from her, the corner of his fur cloak striking her cheek as it followed his heel.

“I had the pleasure of seeing your friends again, you know.” He was watching her out of the corner of his eyes, taking grim pleasure in the sight of her alarm.

“What did you do?” Kenna asked, aghast. She hadn’t meant to - she couldn’t help herself.

“It would appear that most of your ‘loyal’ supporters have deserted your cause,” Marco remarked evenly. “But the old man was there, and the former soldiers of your mother’s guard too,” he added casually. So Val and the mercenaries had deserted her. “My bride was nowhere to be found but your would-be rescuer came in her stead.” He turned back to her, grinning now, “I was drunk but I still put my sword through his eye. If those were your best officers, what does that say about the rest of your rag-tag army?” With a sudden flourish, he pulled his sword out of its scabbard with a speed alarming for someone she knew to be inebriated.

“Look,” he demanded, pointing the tip of his sword at her face.

Her breath caught in her throat. Kenna was disturbed by the sight of fresh blood staining the steel blade. Her friends might have all been slaughtered in the past hours while she was sitting in the dungeons, alone and daring to be _bored_ while they fought and died for her.

“Did you kill them all?” Kenna demanded, her wrists pulling hard against her restraints.

“Not _me_ ,” he defended himself with malicious pleasure. Marco slid his sword back into its sheath. “My soldiers dispatched the rest. Your men scattered to the shadows like cockroaches.”

Kenna swallowed thickly, her jaw clenching tightly as her dark head tilted back to look up at him. “You’re a pig’s ass.” Her lips drew back, revealing a snarl.

“Funny,” Marco remarked evenly. “I thought you said I was handsome before,” he reminded her. Suddenly, he dropped down to one knee so that they were at eye level. Yes, he was handsome - dark, intense eyes, a strong jawline, high cheekbones, and expressive lips - but looks were superficial, deceiving.

She spat in his face.

Marco exhaled harshly, slowly raising his hand to his face and an outstretched thumb to wipe away her saliva.

Then he struck - slapping her hard across her already bruised cheek.

Then he slapped her again a second time for good measure.

Dazed from the two successive blows, Kenna slowly regained focus, the sound of a belt buckle coming undone alarming to her ears. “What…?” Her brown eyes snapped wide open. “What are you doing?” She pulled against her manacles, backing closer against the cold, stone wall.

“Oh, shut up,” he demanded, pulling his trousers down with a harsh jerk.

She dared not follow the movement with her eyes.

He grabbed her chin, his rough thumb resting at the corner of her lips, staring intently into her eyes. She couldn’t read him - he was too volatile, too feverish. She tried to turn away from his unrelenting stare but his grip only tightened and suddenly he was tilting her face upwards and pressing his lips against hers.

It was a harsh kiss, one that felt more like he was intent on pushing her into the wall than truly kissing her. When some semblance of self and dignity returned to her, Kenna parted her lips, intending to bite him, but he suddenly pulled away before she could follow through. 

Both of their breathing was left unevened and laboured, but she was frightened whereas he was in a state of fervoured excitement. His long fingers drunkenly fumbled with the clasp of her dark blue vest. Kenna struggled against him, desperate to impede his progress in undressing her but he soon moved onto her belt, pulling it out of its buckle and straps, throwing it aside with a forceful thud against the prison floor.

Drunk and impatient, Marco soon abandoned his attempts to remove her armor - likely impossible anyways, with the way her hands were being restrained - and moved in to kiss her again, an impassioned action that pushed her higher against the wall. Breathless, he pulled away from her lips again. “Open your mouth,” the prince urged her, kissing at the corner of her lips in a hurried motion. “Don’t you dare bite,” he added forcefully, a hand rising to tangle itself in her long, dark brown hair. “Open it,” he demanded once more, before pressing his mouth against hers, his teeth scraping against the flesh of her lips when she refused to give in.

Huffing impatiently, he suddenly shoved his other hand up against the apex of her thighs, his fingers feeling her body’s most sensitive region through the fabric of her pants.

She gasped aloud, shocked by the new, foreign sensation, and this allowed him to slip his tongue past her lips. Despite his intoxication, he was a confident, purposeful lover.

One pale hand gripping the base of her head, his tongue running over hers, and a hand feeling her urgently between her legs, Marco’s dark eyes were partly lidded as he moved against her body.

Kenna remained frozen, stuck in a state of shock, overwhelmed by all of her physical stirrings and still horrified that it was _this_ man pressing against her body now.

His trembling hand gripping around the waistband of her pants, he pulled them down - past her thighs, her knees - until they laid in a crumpled heap at her feet. Her underclothes followed soon after, and she was shocked by the slickness that greeted his eager fingers.

A little gasp left her as he began softly pinching at her clit, slipping long fingers lower, deeper into her. He pulled his lips away from hers, kissing her neck and then her lower stomach, his mouth set on a slow, purposeful path south to join his busy, moving fingers. Between her years as a sheltered princess and her time spent in hiding as a fugitive, she had never found the chance to explore herself, much less be touched by a man’s hand. Her toes curled tightly. Kenna let out a soft cry as he kissed the soft, sensitive area at the hollow that formed between her thigh and pelvis. Then his mouth was on her cunt and his tongue was moving in her in such a marvelous manner that she could no longer recall her own name, much less who he was to her outside of this moment. Shaking her head desperately - not that he paid her anxiety any mind - she struggled to contain herself. A loud, drawn-out moan left her then as a new, foreign intensity flowed throughout her body.

Her brown eyes slowly fluttering open again as the sensation subsided, she was horrified to see how close Marco had brought his face to hers. Hot mortification washed over her when she saw the smugness etched in his expression as his dark eyes took in the sight of her flushed face. She began struggling in her bounds again, determined to throw his body off of hers when he set a firm hand upon her right hip, holding her in place with a steady, possessive grip.

Her pale lips parting, her brown eyes flickered downwards, watching as Marco took his cock in his other hand and began guiding it towards her thoroughly drenched cunt. It almost seemed that he was teasing her - not that she would ever dare to admit such a thought aloud. Familiar anger rising in her, it was soon brushed aside as the head of his cock slowly slid into her, a sudden warmth running through her body at the physical encroachment. A virgin she might have been moments ago, she still understood what came next.

Engrossed with the soft, wet sound of natural lubrication, Marco slowly, languidly pushed the remaining length of his cock into her, only stopping when he could push no further, his balls resting against the curve of her ass. She moaned softly as he returned his lips to her neck, kissing the space under her jaw, sending electric through her body. She could feel his rigid cock hardening even further inside her inner walls.

Kenna despised him, and yet she had never felt greater shame nor pleasure than as she felt now, impaled on his cock and at the mercy of his lips.

His breath warm against her throat, he withdrew ever so slightly before sliding back inside her. His patience for slow strokes did not last long however as he was soon pounding hard into her. His impassioned breathing loud and heavy in her ears.

Her wrists pulled against her restraints, and if she had been freed from her shackles her arms would have surely followed their instincts and wrapped themselves around his torso. But her _legs_ were left unrestrained and slowly they slipped around his hips, tightening around him, to pull him closer into her body.

Hard thrust after hard thrust, she came for a second time, her voice raising in pitch and volume.

Exhausted and spent, her legs loosened around him as he shoved into her one last time, his cock pulsing around her walls and a warm liquid releasing deep inside her. Exhaling deeply, Marco slowly slipped out of her, his cock softening as it brushed against her thigh. He watched her through her dark, heavy-lidded eyes, a steady contemplation in his stare.

“I’ll reconsider your proposal,” he said finally, rising to his full height and correcting his belt. The surprising tenderness he had shown her during their coupling was slowly ebbing away. Smirking down at her, a new ease in his shoulders, Marco exited the cell, leaving the fading torch for her and quietly ascending the stairs.

Kenna was left lying alone on the hard stone floor, her dark pants pooled in a crumpled heap near her feet, white liquid slowly leaking from her cunt and her wrists sore.

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired to write this after playing the mobile app, in which Marco instantly drew my attention. He was a fascinating villain and I was disappointed to see so little of him in the storyline.


End file.
